


The Housekeeper's Daughter

by Iben



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Female Steve Rogers, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2016-09-18
Packaged: 2018-08-15 18:29:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8068177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iben/pseuds/Iben
Summary: This Bucky, with his long, messy hair and stubble and dark clothes, was a stranger.





	

“Come on, let's go upstairs,” Bucky said. Stevie eyed the staircase and its wide, mahogany colored steps. Family photographs lined the walls; Bucky missing his two front teeth in a school photograph; his sister in pigtails; his mother; grandparents. Even Stevie was in one of these photos – a group shot taken during a garden barbeque when she was about nine. She remembered the dress she wore, in the photo it looked blue but it was actually a pattern of tiny, tiny butterflies. Her legs like twigs sticking out beneath the hem. 

In the frame next to it was a fairly recent photo of Bucky, probably his graduation photo. He looked sullen and strange in his strict uniform, serious and unsmiling. And yet, with his short hair and clean shaven face he was still more familiar than the person standing in front of her. This Bucky, with his long, messy hair and stubble and dark clothes, was a stranger.  
“I don't know,” she said. “Maybe we should just go into the living room? Watch a movie or something?”  
“I've got a TV in my room, and all the good movies.”  
Stevie thought for a second about his parents and what they would think, before realizing that she was making something out of nothing. It was only Bucky, and she was, sadly and irrevocably, only Stevie.   
“All right.”

She had been here a million times before, but Bucky's room no longer held any Transformer toys or posters of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Stevie hadn't been envious of his things, not when he shared them so selflessly with her. He even gave her a few. 

Thinking about that now made her heart ache a little, as she turned around and took in the changes. Posters of bands she had never heard of on the walls, piles of black clothes on the floor, a row of worn paperbacks on a shelf. An unmade bed by one wall, a couch and a cluttered coffee table by the other.  
“It's kind of cozy,” she said.   
“Yeah... not really. I'm gonna get my own place, it's just, you know... the money.” He shrugged a little and Stevie smiled. Bucky smiled back and for a moment it was as if their shared history was there in the room with them. She had been the housekeeper's daughter, dressed in his sister's old hand-me-downs, but he didn't care. He used his, rather bigger, weekly allowance to buy sweets for them both on Saturdays and they played up here, while her mom worked downstairs.

You made my whole childhood, she wanted to say, but instead she took a deep breath to shake herself out of the reverie.   
“You could always share,” she said. “Like I do.”  
“Yeah, you wanna share?” he said.  
Stevie laughed, a little embarrassed. “It's just girls,” she said, “in our apartment.”  
Bucky nodded and she couldn't read his expression. “So, what do you wanna see?” he said and Stevie was grateful for the change of subject.   
“Doesn't really matter.”

Part of her didn't want to stay and watch a movie. She didn't really get this new Bucky. It had been a strange evening. He had called her out of the blue. She didn't even know he was back. They had gone to the fair and he hadn't said much. He didn't want to talk about where he'd been for the past year and his only comment about the boarding school he'd been to before that was that he was glad to be rid of that place. He had asked her about her classes at university and she had told him about them, until she began to feel weird talking so much about herself. 

They had walked silently between stands selling cotton candy and stands where you could win teddy bears and plastic toys, past the ferris wheel and somewhere between the spinning teacups and bumper cars he seemed to snap out of his thoughts and asked her if she wanted an ice cream. She said no thanks, but regretted it afterward, because maybe eating ice cream would have made things seem more normal. 

Some girls hanging around the soda stand had eyed Bucky admiringly and Stevie thought of the girlfriend he had before he left for boarding school a few years back. Stevie had met her, and others, and always felt somewhat intimidated by their self-assurance, their beauty and perfect clothes. 

“Have you seen this?” Bucky asked and held out a DVD. She read the title and shook her head.  
“It's not too gory is is?” she said. “I don't wanna see something completely gross.”  
Bucky smiled a little. “Don't worry,” he said. “It's practically a chick-flick.” Stevie made a face that almost, but not quite, made him laugh. 

It wasn't a chick-flick, not in the slightest, but rather beautiful. Abstract, quiet and graceful. Stevie glanced at Bucky, surprised he had a movie like this in his collection. 

When the movie was finished he looked at her. “Did you like it?”  
Stevie nodded. She liked it a lot. Was it for her benefit then? She was an art student, so she must like arty movies? She did, though.  
“I didn't think this was your kind of movie,” she said. Bucky turned his gaze away, stared at the credits rolling up the screen.  
“There's a lot you don't know about me.”  
Stevie was silent for a short moment.  
“If there's ever anything you want to tell me, I'll listen,” she said.  
He wasn't quite facing her, but she could see the taut line of his jaw. He didn't move for a few seconds, but then he turned his head and looked at her. His eyes looked huge and the light from the TV was reflected in them.

When he moved closer she thought for a second that she was imagining it, but he closed the distance between them on the couch, and when he pressed his lips to hers the contact startled her. It felt unreal. She couldn't be kissing Bucky. And in a way, she almost wasn't. There was nothing familiar about the stubble that scratched against her chin, or the feeling of his mouth against hers. Nor about the wide shoulders, or how he smelled and tasted. He was a grown man, and the childhood friend in her head was a scrawny boy. 

So she kissed him back, because really, wasn't this what she had always wanted? Standing on the sidelines watching his pretty girlfriends, one after the other, feeling left out, and feeling stupid for it. The sting of jealousy and pushing it down and down, telling herself she didn't feel like that about him, and yet she couldn't stop herself from wondering what it would be like if he were to kiss her instead. But he never did. 

Until now. She tried to mimic what he was doing, aware that she'd had far less practice. She found it hard to believe this was even happening. She, who had barely even been on a date, because guys didn't really take an interest in her.

Was that was this was? A date? Had it been one from the beginning, only she was too blind to see it? That thought made her braver. She twirled his hair around her fingers, touched his shoulders. 

She let him push her back towards the cushions. The overwhelming closeness of him made her head spin. He felt big, his back was warm and hard through the shirt underneath her hands. His body was a solid weight on top of her and his breath mingled with hers. 

She felt as if she could have gone on kissing him forever, but it all came to an abrupt halt when the door opened and the ceiling lamp was switched on. Stevie turned her head to see Bucky's mother standing in the doorway. 

Bucky didn't move and Stevie had to push at his shoulders to make him, so that she could get up. The moment seemed to last for an eternity. Her face burned.

“Stephanie, it's very nice to see you,” Mrs Barnes said and her voice sounded strained, “but it's late. If you go downstairs, George will drive you home.” 

Stevie didn't know what to say, so she didn't say anything. She glanced at Bucky, but he wasn't looking at her. With her gaze lowered she left the room. 

“Really?” she heard Mrs Barnes say to Bucky. “Stevie?” She didn't hear Bucky's reply, if there was one. She headed down the stairs. The warm, fuzzy feeling that had enveloped her just moments ago had evaporated. 

Mrs Barnes' voice carried all the way down into the hall. “I can't believe you, what were you thinking?” 

“We're not kids, Mom.” Bucky's voice was calm. 

“It doesn't matter! You knew her mother, what do you think she would have said if she was here to see this?”

Stevie felt her chest constrict. 

“Stevie is a nice girl,” Mrs Barnes went on. “She has no one. And you take advantage of her like this?”

“You think I forced her?” Bucky sounded disbelieving. 

“No! That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying you...”

Stevie really shouldn't be standing here, listening to this. She didn't want to hear it. She wanted to get out of here. The thought of sitting in a car with Mr Barnes was horrifying, she felt that he would know exactly what she and Bucky had been doing too, so she just left. Out the front door and into the crisp night air. She started walking towards the bus station. 

All those times she had dreamed that something like this would happen, this was not how she had imagined she would feel afterward. Maybe she should have. The shapes of the large houses that loomed on both sides of the quiet street were familiar. The lush gardens. As a child she had thought of Bucky's house as her house. It wasn't.


End file.
